FleishmanHillard 75th Anniversary

A mark for a 75-year-old agency, chosen for the people inside it.

The FleishmanHillard 75th Anniversary lockup with the tagline Bold. True. One. Since 1946

FleishmanHillard · Associate Creative Director

Logo design · Concept development · Executive presentation · Template design


THE CHALLENGE

FleishmanHillard was turning 75 and nobody was in the mood to celebrate. Covid was looming over everyone.

The mark was going in front of every employee in the agency before it went anywhere near a client, which made the usual milestone badge the wrong instrument entirely.

WHAT I DID

Explored the range, then built the mark around a sunrise. 
Eight directions. The corporate one was chosen first and it fell flat: cold, and exactly the wrong note for the moment. So the mark went the other way. The sun comes up over the mountains, for a brighter day and some warmth. The star at the top is a north star, saying that however chaotic things get, we find our way through.

Eight logo concepts explored for the FleishmanHillard 75th anniversary
Eight directions, before the warm one won.

Chose the line, with a copywriter. 
A copywriter wrote several options for a tagline that had to capture the agency at a milestone. I picked Bold. True. One. Since 1946. Both the CEO and the Chairman landed on the same one.

Took it to the CEO, then to the Chairman. 
I pitched the sunrise and the north star to the CEO, and he approved it. Then the CEO, the Chief Talent Development Officer and I presented it to the Chairman, who had run the agency before my time there.

Built the deck template it lived in. 
The template ran for the year, across all-staff, cabinet, and SVP calls.

The FleishmanHillard 75th anniversary presentation template, showing the cover and interior slide layouts
The deck template. It ran for the year.

Where else the mark appeared. The anniversary video closes on the logo.

The anniversary video. The mark closes it.

A 75th birthday during Covid is a hard sell. The mark had to say we will get through this, not congratulations to us.


The same agency again, and the year I had to describe a thing precisely enough for someone else to build it.

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